Awesome
electron-installer-flatpak
Create a flatpak for your Electron app. This is based off the electron-installer-debian tool. Add flatpak support to an electron app using electron-packager with minimal configuration.
Requirements
This tool requires flatpak
and flatpak-builder
>= 0.8.2 to be installed on
your system. See http://flatpak.org/getting.html
Building an electron flatpak requires installing a "base" flatpak application with electron library dependencies. That base will be autoinstalled during an app build.
Actually running the apps will require the freedesktop runtime to be installed. If you already are running flatpak apps you may have the freedesktop runtime installed. The following example will install the freedesktop runtime for both i386 and x86_64.
flatpak --user remote-add --from gnome https://sdk.gnome.org/gnome.flatpakrepo
flatpak --user install gnome org.freedesktop.Platform/x86_64/1.4 org.freedesktop.Platform/i386/1.4
Installation
For use from command-line:
$ npm install -g electron-installer-flatpak
For use in npm scripts or programmatically:
$ npm install --save-dev electron-installer-flatpak
Usage
Say your Electron app lives in path/to/app
, and has a structure like this:
.
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── node_modules
│ ├── electron-packager
│ └── electron-prebuilt
├── package.json
├── resources
│ ├── Icon.png
│ ├── IconTemplate.png
│ └── IconTemplate@2x.png
└── src
├── index.js
├── main
│ └── index.js
└── renderer
├── index.html
└── index.js
You now run electron-packager
to build the app for flatpak:
$ electron-packager . app --platform linux --arch x64 --out dist/
And you end up with something like this in your dist
folder:
.
└── dist
└── app-linux-x64
├── LICENSE
├── LICENSES.chromium.html
├── content_shell.pak
├── app
├── icudtl.dat
├── libgcrypt.so.11
├── libnode.so
├── locales
├── natives_blob.bin
├── resources
├── snapshot_blob.bin
└── version
How do you turn that into a flatpak package that your users can install?
Command-Line
If you want to run electron-installer-flatpak
straight from the command-line, install the package globally:
$ npm install -g electron-installer-flatpak
And point it to your built app:
$ electron-installer-flatpak --src dist/app-linux-x64/ --dest dist/installers/ --arch x64
You'll end up with the package at dist/installers/io.atom.electron.app_master_x64.flatpak
.
Scripts
If you want to run electron-installer-flatpak
through npm, install the package locally:
$ npm install --save-dev electron-installer-flatpak
Edit the scripts
section of your package.json
:
{
"name": "app",
"description": "An awesome app!",
"version": "0.0.1",
"scripts": {
"start": "electron .",
"build": "electron-packager . app --platform linux --arch x64 --out dist/",
"flatpak64": "electron-installer-flatpak --src dist/app-linux-x64/ --dest dist/installers/ --arch x64"
},
"devDependencies": {
"electron-installer-flatpak": "*",
"electron-packager": "*",
"electron-prebuilt": "*"
}
}
And run the script:
$ npm run flatpak64
You'll end up with the package at dist/installer/io.atom.electron.app_master_x64.flatpak
.
Programmatically
Install the package locally:
$ npm install --save-dev electron-installer-flatpak
And write something like this:
var installer = require('electron-installer-flatpak')
var options = {
src: 'dist/app-linux-x64/',
dest: 'dist/installers/',
arch: 'x64'
}
console.log('Creating package (this may take a while)')
installer(options, function (err) {
if (err) {
console.error(err, err.stack)
process.exit(1)
}
console.log('Successfully created package at ' + options.dest)
})
You'll end up with the package at dist/installers/io.atom.electron.app_master_x64.flatpak
.
Options
Even though you can pass most of these options through the command-line interface, it may be easier to create a configuration file:
{
"dest": "dist/installers/",
"icon": "resources/Icon.png",
"categories": [
"Utility"
]
}
And pass that instead with the config
option:
$ electron-installer-flatpak --src dist/app-linux-x64/ --arch x64 --config config.json
Anyways, here's the full list of options:
src
Type: String
Default: undefined
Path to the folder that contains your built Electron application.
dest
Type: String
Default: undefined
Path to the folder that will contain your flatpak installer.
rename
Type: Function
Default: function (dest, src) { return path.join(dest, src); }
Function that renames all files generated by the task just before putting them in your dest
folder.
options.id
Type: String
Default: the inverted hostname of package.homepage
plus the santized package.name
, or io.atom.electron
App ID of the flatpak, used in the id
field of a flatpak-builder manifest and the flatpak filename.
options.productName
Type: String
Default: package.productName || package.name
Name of the application (e.g. Atom
), used in the Name
field of the desktop
specification.
options.genericName
Type: String
Default: package.genericName || package.productName || package.name
Generic name of the application (e.g. Text Editor
), used in the GenericName
field of the desktop
specification.
options.description
Type: String
Default: package.description
Short description of the application, used in the Comment
field of the desktop
specification.
options.branch
Type: String
Default: master
Release branch of the flatpak, used in the branch
field of a flatpak-builder manifest and the flatpak filename, after the sanitized app ID.
options.base
Type: String
Default: io.atom.electron.BaseApp
Base app to use when building the flatpak, used in the base
field of a flatpak-builder manifest.
options.baseVersion
Type: String
Default: master
Base app version, used in the base-version
field of a flatpak-builder manifest.
options.baseFlatpakref
Type: String
Default: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/electron-flatpak.endlessm.com/electron-base-app-master.flatpakref
Url of a flatpakref to use to auto install the base application.
options.runtime
Type: String
Default: org.freedesktop.Platform
Runtime id, used in the runtime
field of a flatpak-builder manifest.
options.runtimeVersion
Type: String
Default: 1.4
Runtime version, used in the runtime-version
field of a flatpak-builder manifest.
options.sdk
Type: String
Default: org.freedesktop.Sdk
Sdk id, used in the sdk
field of a flatpak-builder manifest.
options.arch
Type: String
Default: undefined
Machine architecture the package is targeted to. Suggested to use node style arches here ('ia32', 'x64'), which will be converted to flatpak style arches ('i386', 'x86_64') when calling into the actual flatpak commands. Directly using flatpak style arches is also supported.
options.finishArgs
Type: Array[String]
Default:
[
// X Rendering
'--socket=x11', '--share=ipc',
// Open GL
'--device=dri',
// Audio output
'--socket=pulseaudio',
// Read/write home directory access
'--filesystem=home',
// Chromium uses a socket in tmp for its singleton check
'--filesystem=/tmp',
// Allow communication with network
'--share=network',
// System notifications with libnotify
'--talk-name=org.freedesktop.Notifications'
],
Arguments to use when call flatpak build-finish
, use in the finish-args
field of a flatpak-builder manifest.
Changing this can be used to customize permissions of the sandbox the flatpak will run in.
options.files
Type: Array[Array[source, dest]]
Default:
[],
Files to copy directly into the app. Should be a list of [source, dest] tuples. Source should be a relative/absolute path to a file/directory to copy into the flatpak, and dest should be the path inside the app install prefix (e.g. /share/applications/)
Application assets and code will be fully handled by electron-packager
, but
this is a useful way to install things such as appstream metadata for an app,
or dbus configuration files.
options.symlinks
Type: Array[Array[target, location]]
Default:
[],
Symlinks to create in the app files. Should be a list of [target, location] symlink tuples. Target can be either a relative or absolute path inside the app install prefix, and location should be a absolute path inside the prefix to create the symlink at.
options.modules
Type: Array[Object]
Default: []
This option can be used to build extra software modules into the flatpak application sandbox. Most electron applications will not need this, but if you are using native node modules that require certain libraries on the system, this may be necessary. For example, to build libgit2 to use with nodegit, add the following to your modules list.
modules: [
{
name: 'libgit2',
cmake: true,
configOpts: [ '-DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS:BOOL=ON', '-DTHREADSAFE=ON' ],
sources: [{
type: 'git',
url: 'https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2.git',
branch: 'maint/v0.24'
}]
}
]
See the modules
field of a flatpak-builder manifest for more details.
options.bin
Type: String
Default: package.name
Relative path to the executable that will act as binary for the application, used in the Exec
field of the desktop
specification.
The generated package will contain a symlink /usr/bin/<%= options.name %>
pointing to the path provided here.
For example, providing this configuration:
{
src: '...',
dest: '...',
name: 'foo',
bin: 'resources/cli/launcher.sh'
}
Will create a package with the following symlink:
usr/bin/foo@ -> ../lib/foo/resources/cli/launcher.sh
And a desktop specification with the following Exec
key:
Exec=foo %U
options.icon
Type: String
or Object[String:String]
Default: undefined
Path to a single image that will act as icon for the application:
{
icon: 'resources/Icon.png'
}
Or multiple images with their corresponding resolutions:
{
icon: {
'48x48': 'resources/Icon48.png',
'64x64': 'resources/Icon64.png',
'128x128': 'resources/Icon128.png',
'256x256': 'resources/Icon256.png'
}
}
options.categories
Type: Array[String]
Default: []
Categories in which the application should be shown in a menu, used in the Categories
field of the desktop
specification.
For possible values check out the Desktop Menu Specification.
options.mimeType
Type: Array[String]
Default: []
MIME types the application is able to open, used in the MimeType
field of the desktop
specification.
Meta
- Code:
git clone git://github.com/endlessm/electron-installer-flatpak.git
- Home: https://github.com/endlessm/electron-installer-flatpak/
Contributors
- Daniel Perez Alvarez (unindented@gmail.com)
- Matt Watson (mattdangerw@gmail.com)
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Daniel Perez Alvarez (unindented.org). This is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the LICENSE file.